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Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

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Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#11

Post by jamesbritt »

post_break wrote: post #4

Since 2006 when I first switched I don't remember Apple ever officially posting in those forums. This isn't something new. Their support channels are the phone number, and employees at the store. The forums are just their for archive really.

The key point of Lessig's post is not that Apple reps do not post there, it is that Apple reps remove posts that offer tangible, actionable, information, for flimsy reasons.

A forum use posted information about how to get an issue resolved by exercising one's warranty rights; that post was removed. Lessig reposted that info; it was also removed, and Lessig was informed that the forum does not allow for "polls or petitions."

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#12

Post by ctdonath »

ebbv wrote: post #2

Apple and Google do take very cold, inhuman approaches toward customer service (or lack of it.) Except in the case of the Apple Store where the employees are generally quite friendly, even if their actual helpfulness varies greatly from individual to individual. That said, it would be moronic of them to allow comments/threads which are advocating people to take legal action against the company on their own boards. It…

Yup. The problem seems a small matter of an OTA software update. The solution being posted - and deleted - is demanding a replacement of >US$500 of hardware. Whatever the reason for not fixing the actual problem, what's being advocated as a solution isn't: it's just a way of counter-irritating the company into (one hopes) releasing an actual fix. Abusive behavior is not corrected by abusive behavior in return. There's some reason the correct fix hasn't been released (whether you agree with the reason or not), Apple doesn't want to talk about it for whatever reason makes sense to them, and of course will stop any advocacy of malicious behavior on their servers designed to manipulate the company into doing something they have reason not to.

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#13

Post by ebbv »

bsimpson wrote: post #6
ebbv wrote: post #2

Apple and Google do take very cold, inhuman approaches toward customer service (or lack of it.) Except in the case of the Apple Store where the employees are generally quite friendly, even if their actual helpfulness varies greatly from individual to individual. That said, it would be moronic of them to allow comments/threads which are advocating people to take legal action against the company on their own boards. It…

Google phone support for Chromebooks is surprisingly good.

That's good to hear. Their support for most of their products is non-existent, though. :)

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#14

Post by Shivetya »

Two notes.

1) Thank you for copying that message, here I sit with a 16g White 4s and now I certainly do not want the upgrade.

2) Welcome to Apple Support. That site is much more useful to me for figuring out how to use my Apple product than to fix it. I remember the woes of Wi-Fi being lost on my iMac. Having posts deleted, and watching a thread morph into a years long thousand post monstrosity. All without a chirp from Apple, but yeah they do take down posts. Especially anything where people posted about taking their iMacs into the store.

if you have Applecare, call them. Make it cost them money. Get enough people to swamp their phones or stores might wake them up

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#15

Post by skwirl »

usaphp wrote: post #8

Why did not he just call apple or visit their store? I want to see him dealing with Google or other big company via community forums, I remember a story on HN when a nexus was released and people could not get the phone for months after they paid for it, they could not even get a phone number to call and ask a question. Apple has a genius bar at their stores and a phone support, you can not seriously expect a reply f…

You only get 90 days of phone support with new Apple products unless you buy AppleCare. I don't know about the person who wrote this article, but many people do not live near Apple stores. Even where I live in metro Boston, it takes 40 minutes to get to one from my home (red line to green line, ugh). Where I grew up in Upstate NY, the nearest is 70 miles away.

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#16

Post by bambax »

Why isn't there a forum for Apple products not controlled by Apple? Shouldn't there be a stackexchange site for this?

Lawrence Lessing needs to ask Joel Spolsky about this.

Edit: as mentioned below, the site already exists. So people need to be using it instead of an Apple forum where the most useful posts get deleted by The Firm...

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#17

Post by KaiserPro »

Sadly this isn't news.

Apple have been doing this for the last 5 years at least.

I support a large fleet of Macpros (Ha, yeah "fast" and "magical" with 5 year old procs in them) Everytime an OS upgrade comes along something is silently broken. Trying to get support is a nightmare. For example when they changed which version of kerberos they used without any warning. Or changing the syntax of automount.

Apple are shits and have always been. Just like google[1].

[1]don't get me started on them. they keep on pissing about with the admin console for paid google apps, without warning.

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#18

Post by pja »

ctdonath wrote: post #12
ebbv wrote: post #2

Apple and Google do take very cold, inhuman approaches toward customer service (or lack of it.) Except in the case of the Apple Store where the employees are generally quite friendly, even if their actual helpfulness varies greatly from individual to individual. That said, it would be moronic of them to allow comments/threads which are advocating people to take legal action against the company on their own boards. It…

Yup. The problem seems a small matter of an OTA software update. The solution being posted - and deleted - is demanding a replacement of >US$500 of hardware. Whatever the reason for not fixing the actual problem, what's being advocated as a solution isn't: it's just a way of counter-irritating the company into (one hopes) releasing an actual fix. Abusive behavior is not corrected by abusive behavior in return. There'…

It's hardly "malicious behaviour" to expect a company to deliver the service their product advertising claimed.

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#19

Post by nathan_long »

bambax wrote: post #16

Why isn't there a forum for Apple products not controlled by Apple? Shouldn't there be a stackexchange site for this? Lawrence Lessing needs to ask Joel Spolsky about this. Edit: as mentioned below, the site already exists. So people need to be using it instead of an Apple forum where the most useful posts get deleted by The Firm...

You mean this one? http://apple.stackexchange.com/

Re: Wow, or from the When-Apple-Became-the-Borg Department

#20

Post by dotmanish »

bambax wrote: post #16

Why isn't there a forum for Apple products not controlled by Apple? Shouldn't there be a stackexchange site for this? Lawrence Lessing needs to ask Joel Spolsky about this. Edit: as mentioned below, the site already exists. So people need to be using it instead of an Apple forum where the most useful posts get deleted by The Firm...

What? http://apple.stackexchange.com/
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